INDIANAPOLIS — As you might expect, there would be some serious competition if there were a contest to name "The Greatest Feminist" at the women's Final Four.

But I have my pick. I feel fairly certain that I've found him.

My choice is Gary Blair, the 65-year-old coach of Texas A&M, which upset highly regarded Stanford for a spot in tonight's NCAA final against Notre Dame, which surprised even more highly regarded Connecticut. (Do we see a theme developing here?)

Here's why I've picked Blair. When the conversation turns to why there wasn't a full house at Conseco Fieldhouse for Sunday's Final Four, which should be unacceptable for this event in 2011, he says this:

"It will be embarrassing if we don't have a sellout (today) with a team from Indiana in the state of Indiana," he said Monday. "We're getting as many Aggies up here as we can get. And we're converting a lot of others. … We need also the fans of Indiana. Whether or not they're Notre Dame fans or they're Indiana University or Butler fans, we need them at this ballgame. … Can a good women's basketball game that's going to be played between the ears and below the rim excite the people out there enough to watch this thing? That's what it's all about."

Blair isn't kidding.

"I know we screwed it up for ESPN. You don't have the Pat-Geno show. … I think the story today is two teams that do what they do well and they don't worry about having the 35-point scorers and the great names of the game. The story is Notre Dame and A&M. And if you all cannot remember some of our names, that's good. But remember A&M and Notre Dame. Not Muffet (McGraw, the Fighting Irish head coach) and Gary. A&M. Notre Dame. It's good. And if we can pull this thing off, it would be a great football rivalry we need to get going. We just beat Notre Dame in tennis, I noticed the other day."

That might be just what NCAA women's hoops needs: two big, broad-shouldered football schools battling it out in its final game. If the football guys start to care, perhaps you are actually making some progress. It's the little things that start to matter. Blair said A&M just changed the starting time of the school's baseball game today to 5 p.m. CT, and the reason is his team, which is playing for the NCAA title at 7:30 p.m. CT.

"Could you picture that happening?" he marveled.

A&M is an unlikely place to find even the remotest of acknowledgement that women actually play sports, much less can be successful at them. Founded as an all-male military institution in 1876, the school did not admit women until 1963 — after it was sued to do so.

By 1977, according to The New York Times, the women's basketball team finally was given its own locker room, a converted men's dressing room. They dealt with the urinals by placing silk flowers in them.

And now, this: a rugged, muscular, confounding dragon-slayer of a basketball team that has taken out two No. 1 seeds — Baylor and Stanford — in its last two tournament games.

"We support women's sports as well as we do men's sports," Blair said. "We used to be dead last (in attendance) when I took the job (in 2003). We were averaging about 300 people a game, and those were usually family members."

If you were picking a raging feminist, you wouldn't look for a résumé like Blair's. He is decidedly old school, a man who relaxes by going to movies by himself the day before a game or the day after to relieve the stress of the season. He proudly reads five newspapers a day, including making sure to buy the newspaper in the town he's visiting.

"The printed word is just so important out there," he said. "I do not use a computer. I have learned how to use whatever you call it on my hip there. I've got an iPhone now. I just learned how to text about two months ago. After the game, I had 193 messages. I hadn't cleared them all because it takes me too long. I have to go one finger and do all that. I'm still learning."